J Francho

Dare I say it? Keitech Swing Impact Fat. I usually fish them on their Super Round Tungsten jig with an exposed hook.

Three pages, I hope the OP got his answer.

Not where I live. I've posted ad nauseum about "byproduct" catches that will tax your gear. It's all about location, location, location. I do agree that somewhere close to $100 is good reel territory for spinning. I bought my CI4s for $175, and payed a premium for weight loss. Paired with my Avid rods I bougjt on sale for $120, I have great tools for not too much scratch. But you gotta have patience for the good deals.

I'd rather have one nice reel than three budget reels. I have an old wood handle Stradic that my kid uses now. What a great reel. That thing has caught some serious fish, and feels great still.

You can be real sloppy with your knots using CXX. It's pretty forgiving, as long as you wet the line. It'll also take simple knots well, like a plain old cinch knot. Whatever it lacks in suppleness, it makes up in strength in other areas.

That's funny jeb2. I agree, I wouldn't want to develop a web based enterprise reporting solution that integrates CRM data from two different systems, and call center data from two different ACD products on a MAC either. But this is a phone that I use for fun. I mostly check email, weather, 4square, and card games, along with some photography and video. Oh yeah, I use it to send texts, and call people sometimes, LOL. An iPhone suits me fine. I'm sure that if I bought an Android, it would suit me fine too. It's all what you get used to. I'll tell you this for sure, though: I HATE BLACKBERRY!

Not bad, and from shore no less. Tough time of year for that!

I can see it down the road. As for smaller local events, it would open the door to cheating. And it's the countless smaller club and weekend events where there it would make the most difference. The numbers of bass caught during an Elite event is drop in the bucket once you put the size of the fishery into perspective.

The Ducketts, Kistlers, and orange Carrot Stix I've seen in person didn't have guides that were any smaller than my regular Avid spinners. That does look smaller, though. Not sure why they would do such a thing.

I haven't seen any micro guide spinning rods with a small gathering ring. In fact, they are all the same as regular spinning rods, just that the ring size gets smaller towards the tip of the blank.

Double that advice for spinners, since spool circumferences can vary wildly between brands.

You seem to be searching for a silver bullet that will catch fish. You keep saying, "pressured lakes." Everywhere we fish is pressured. I dare say some of my local water, more so. One of the easiest lakes to fish locally, has a tournament just about every day throughout the season. I think you need to rethink how you are going about learning your water. You could get 20 replies from well known members with a lot of integrity tell that dragging a 1/2 oz. jig will definitely get the job done. Or something else. What happens when it doesn't? What will you try then? What if you get 20 different baits, and none work? That's your starting point. Learn what locations the bass are holding in winter, and use a bait that gets to the fish. The silver bullet will be time on the water, and trial and error.

So, another case of, "If I post it enough times, it will become the truth!"

That's a good point. I know guys, that if it weren't for tournament fishing, would have zero use for casting gear altogether, outside of the spawn. They'd be using spinning gear for deep smallies the rest of the time....myself included, LOL.

And just like you offered your point of view, I offered mine. Just because mine differs from yours doesn't make either opinion righter. At some point, you are going to have to accept that your point of view isn't the only one the OP is seeking. In fact, limiting the advice to your narrow set of criteria is a little prejudicial, don't you think? There's a message in my post. Three spinners is plenty for a guy that obviously over does things.

I don't need a fleet of spinners, three to go along with the the 23 baitcasters, 2 centrepins, 3 conventional reels, and three fly reels is plenty.

Another title could be "Bloody Fish Butts and Sticky Slime," but I think I'll leave it with these two quotes by Noel: "Dude, that fish is bleeding from it's butt!" "I though that was fishing line, but it was a big stringy booger coming off that fish!" I don't have any explanation for all the gross things that happened to me today, but it was all worth it. Even the bad case of the dropsies I had early in the day. Noel Good called me yesterday to invite me for a day on Erie. It took all of 3 milliseconds to make the arrangements. The weather was perfect, light chop on the water receding to glass, and bugs everywhere. ERIE! I love this place. Reminds me so much of my home waters on Lake Ontario, but way better structure and much bigger fish. We started with jigging spoons,with Noel boating a few fish fairly quickly. I had a few on, but kept losing them. I discovered a bent hook, then realized I was using my 6-8 m/XF jerk bait rod, not the slower, beefier 7' MH/M that suits my style better. Get a 3X treble on the spoon, attached to the right rod, and I was hooking up. The fish we marked stopped responding to the spoons, so we both switched to drop shot rigs. This is where we really started picking the fish off. Action was fairly slow, but with flourishes of catches. Many of the fish we caught we're spotted on the graph, and we would watch them come up to the baits, and then we'd really sell the bait. Sometimes two or three fish came right up to the bait. Most fish the came up off the bottom to the bait ended up on the hook. Had I caught all my bites, we'd easily had a 50 fish day. I had plenty of technical issues, but was having a ball. Deep fishing in open water is one of my favorite ways to fish. Hook them, and Hang on! Size wasn't all there, but we had two significant fish. Noel had a nice fish that was about 4 lbs.,and I set a new personal record for smallies that has stood since the mid 90s. I really didn't think it was a PB, until I got it on the scale, and the numbers kept going up and up, LOL. "Noel, you just put me on a PB smallmouth!" Erie smallmouth are like a different species of fish. Heavy, surly, and thick. Even their mouths are strong as hell. I bent hooks trying to get them unbuttoned for a quick release back to the depths. Gear: Spoons, St. Croix Avid AVC70MHM, Daiwa Alphas, 10 lb. Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. Drop shot, St. Croix Avid AVS63MLXF, Shimano Stradic CI4, 6lb. Seaguar InvisX. Thanks to Smooth Drags Carbontex replacement washers for controlling those beasts! Now the part you're all waiting for.....pics! A decent fish finally, after fixing my "technical issues." Noel with a pretty little chunk. Look at the belly on this fish! Here's what they were eating. They are never ready to come in boat. Noel: "This is the type of fish we want more of!" 5 lbs. 12 oz. Awesome fish, but I'm gunning for a 6 now!. Another view of that fish. Another great day on the water with a great host. Noel is a VERY good stick, and an even better host. Thanks for the great day!

Most are "press fit," but removing them often damages the palm side plate.

iMovie. It was $5. If you don't want your location revealed, click "no" when it asks.

If you keep a ton of video footage on hand for editing later, get the 32. If you're just storing music and apps, the 16 is fine. I've joked that a 24 would be perfect, lol. But, I'm weird.

Lucky Craft uses Daiichi sharpened inline VMCs. The inline hooks are a great replacement hook for good old baits like Warts that still have a lot of fish catching in them.

I don't want to work when I am goofing off on my phone. My boss heard I had an iPhone, and sent me a bunch tools to synch Outlook, access the VPN, and a time card app. I laughed, and told him when he pays my bill, I'll install those apps.

I never lost a fish I couldn't catch with braid!!! Same goes for fluoro.

Exactly!

That's the point.